Even fewer enterprises set up in 2016
Last year saw a new low in the creation of new enterprises in Greece, confirming the impression that going into business in this country is neither easy nor a way out of unemployment. Company exits from commercial registers were particularly high last year, while the first data for 2017 are far from optimistic.
According to data from the General Commercial Register for 2016 (the first full year of capital controls), just 28,669 enterprises were set up, even fewer than in the politically and financially turbulent 2015.
Another miserable aspect of last year was that it had the biggest deficit in register entrants and exits in a 12-month period: With 35,274 companies leaving the commercial register, the deficit of the year amounted to 6,604 companies.
Finance Ministry sources attribute this phenomenon to the write-off of many enterprises that had been inactive for years. In 2016 exits from the register returned to the level seen up to 2014, as in 2015 there was an unusually small number (28,230).
